I'm trying not to be fascinated - certainly I'm not obsessed and certainly I'm not thrilled - with things falling apart.

Interests: Art, books, education, poetry, internet, cosmology, family is the center of my life. Also: friends, ideas especially philosophy, studies of human origins, learning something new and difficult, Galileo, Darwin, and Einstein whom I admire as heros, mountains but not the beach, stars in the desert sky on a clear night. Also: making little movies. See YouTube. I don't care about wine, love Puccini, love my Jaguar S (zoom zoom, oops got a ticket), enjoy genealogy, love rural life, but also love New York City Boston London Edinburgh. I can't abide San Francisco (except, see next). I love historical and revival architecture; favorite buildings include Union Station in Los Angeles, Grand Central Station in New York City, quiet Wren neighborhood churches in London, Salisbury Cathedral, England. The Mission Inn in Riverside - personal favorite - is the most important, under-appreciated historic revival building in California. I enjoy some modern architecture, esp. St. Mary's Cathedral, San Francisco. I appreciate religion. I miss my relatives and friends in New England, my children in New York City and Seattle. I have hope.

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Thanks for the useful comment. It helps clarify what I was trying to say. I was not trying to suggest that mass killers today are motivated to mass kill political opponents. I meant only, as you say, historical revolutionary ideologies, originally targeting ruling classes, changed over time in America to become a mythos about killing oppressors of any kind; and that his mythos was/is attractive to disordered minds.
I hint in concluding paragraphs of the article that gun restriction is counter-productive. Expansion of government regulation convinces persons who believe the 2nd amendment is important to protect liberty that there is a need to do so. The way to de-fang the revolutionary ideology is to expand democracy, not to remove government from the people by centralization and bureaucracy; more democracy would prove the revolutionary ideology is out of place and time.
For clarification, I did not say American "ideal". I referred to American cultural value/values. Values are different from ideals. Ideals suggests positive aspirational principles. Values simply implies public symbollic orientation of thought.

Since the eighteenth century, America has been filled with politically displaced peoples who, defeated in their home nations, have in exile supported and celebrated killing their oppressors in their home states. This political ferment has generated a broad cultural strain romanticizing and justi...

Well, do other highways and streets in Germany have speed limits and other traffic laws governing driver behavior? Hey, how about France? The UK?
Sure, I'd be down with making alcohol production and consumption illegal. I think there are great differences between alcohol and marijuana, but okay.
And for thousands of years, cannabis and hallucinatory drugs, derived from well known effects of mushrooms, have been socially suppressed and restricted to religious and ceremonial use, such as warrior ceremonies described in the Iliad.
Finally, note that regular marijuana users are overwhelmingly young males ages 15 to 30. Such a statistic makes it likely that regular marijuana use is a symptom of a medical problem--probably linked to testosterone issues (too much? too little?) and is a form of self-medication. Let's figure out the problem and solve it, rather than distorting society to conform to the pathologial needs of these users.

The most frequently used argument for legalizing argument--it appears in California's official ballot explanation--is that marijuana is already widely used, even though illegal. If it's use would be legalized, costs of law enforcement would be reduced and the government could tax it, increasing...

I wondered if anyone would take the bait. Thanks. Of course, you are right. The tutor, or instructor in the US, was not a "Professor". He was only a "professor" in the colloquial sense.(Though in the English university system, even senior faculty teach in tutorials and are called tutors.) As I recall, in the campaign of 2008, there was much made of how Obama was a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. But of course he was not a "Professor" as the dissembling, silent insinuation put out by his campaign web site made out. He was only a "professor" in the colloquial sense of a teacher or instructor in a college or university. He was in fact only a contract lecturer without qualifications for a tenure line professorial appointment. The professor of O'Donnell's class wrote a superb recommendation, with much greater effort and care than most Professors take, and his high estimation of her was supported by his discussion of context and performance. As a professor for 34 years, and a Distinguished Professor for the final five years of my career, I read, oh, probably, over two thousand professorial recommendations in one context or another. Most of them were sloppily written, many were outright dishonest, as the writer feared law suits (as recommendations in the US are not longer protected by privacy), and nearly all of them were written grudingly (as several female professional colleagues of mine complained resentfully, writing letters of recommendation was an onerous chore). Congratulations to Christine O'Donnell for being an outstanding student. Congratulations to the "professor" who taught who taught her on being a conscientous teacher who recognized and rewarded the outstanding student and fulfilled his professional obligation to his student. No congratulations to distractors who wish to diminish her accomplishment or her teacher's evaluation of it.

Well, well, well. So much for belittling Christine O'Donnell. Read the entire recommendation, which discusses her enrollment situation (a summer school session of Phoenix Institute held at Oxford), the nature of the course, and her professor's commendation of her performance and glowing recommen...

Sometimes, insight comes from the unlikeliest sources. For years I have been afflicted by chilblains (I think this is the correct term, but I am not certain) on my fingers. These little sores occur frequently in the winters, but sometimes in the summers. They develop quickly. In as little as 2 h...

I didn't think I was putting Michelle Obama in her place. I thought I was putting her in the well-worn role of the American princess arriving in the Old World, a role pioneered by the white daughters of wealthy American businessmen; hence, the final reference to James.

Quite a few of my fellow conservative bloggers, whom I regularly read, for instance, Gateway Pundit and JoshuaPundit, are upset at the cost of the Obamas' vacations, and in particular the luxury circus that Michelle has brought to Spain. Some of it the taxpayers' dime. Now ... about my personal ...

Imperial Japan was a militaristic, racist state. It waged a vicious war, as vicious as the Nazis' Jewish genocide, against the Chinese and other non-Japanese Asians. The atomic bombs dropped on Japan stopped the Asian genocide, in which, by 1945, the Imperial army was murdering hundreds of thous...

Puff on, dude. But, when the haze parts long enough, note that personal experience is often idiosyncratic, not typical, and not a guide to a scientific understanding of the medical characteristics and condition of the whole population. You're lucky, that's all. Most users aren't.

The notion that legalizing marijuana would solve most of the drug problem in the US is nonsense. It would eliminate the problem of illegal sales and purchases and much consumption of marijuana as an illegal drug--that would be true by definition; but it would increase other problems. (1) Legaliz...

Interesting suggestion. I'm not sure of the significance of obesity-linked carbon emissions from transport (etc.) but there is probably some connection. The difficulty in measuring such an effect would be that the transportation infrastructure is already in place and producing emissions, with or without the perhaps 20% increase in foods and processed foods eaten at the obesity margin. The trucks won't stop running if their loads decrease by 20%. But a 20% drop in consumption would be a health blessing for the over-weight consumers!

Several considerations must govern determination of who is at fault for the rise in incidence of obesity. In as much as the rise is a public health phenomenon, the obesity is the fault of the public health agencies, the medical practitioners, and medical science researchers. They should know wha...

My condolences on your tragic betrayl in your youth and the sorrowful decision that you felt compelled to make, for which you have paid every day since then. You needed support, love, and assistance when none was offered, by family or friends or strangers.

Reading testimony on the Internet by women who have had abortions, I am struck by the psychological complex in which many of them decide to have abortions. Undoubtedly, some women are motivated by serious health issues in which continuation of the pregnancy would endanger lives or seriously dama...

I provide lots of thoughtful posts about a variety of important issues that nobody comments on. After nearly six years (yes, Typepad folks, that six years) of blogging on Typepad, maybe you could boost my blogs by citing me, instead of someone doing pop culture.

There is a great discussion going on today over at one of our favorite blogs, BobbinTalk. Aneta raises some interesting questions around the ethics of blogging vs. editorial/advertorial for fashion reviews. Should fashion bloggers expect free samples for reviews? We love her suggestion that blog...

Of course, it is. ObamaCare meets all the major requirements of historical socialism to be defined as socialism. It is appropriate to label it as "socialist" in political debate, because that label establishes for political reference the great distance between ObamaCare and, even with Medicare a...

About a week after my surgery to repair a hernia, my eyes became inflamed--red and itching eyeballs, puff bags under my eyes. I thought that it was an infection. I used some prescription antibiotic eyedrops that were in the medicine cabinet from a previous eye infection for several days. The pre...

This Newsmax report by Ronald Kessler of reminiscences by one of Obama's college acquaintances, John Drew, should surprise no one. In his autobiography, Obama discusses his attraction to radicalism. Nonetheless, it is good to have confirmation: During Christmas break, Drew says he was at Graum...

Dogs are, I am told by my vet, fairly sensitive to foods. Allergy to wheat is common in dogs. So avoid dog foods with wheat or wheat glutin (check the ingredients on the label). Frequent changes of dog food sometimes lead to vomiting and intestinal distress. Dogs intestines are made for a "high quality" diet, meaning a diet high in protein. Dogs' intestines don't have the enzymes to digest most vegetables. Carrots pass through them unchanged. So "diversity" in a dog's diet is difficult. You should stick with a lean high protein diet. Avoid human foods that are high in fats, such as cheese, as these have an even more pronounced effect on dogs than on humans.

I am supposed to be on a four-day rotational diet, while avoiding foods to which I am sensitive, avoiding cow's milk, and severely limiting refined cane sugar. I am urged by my naturopathic doctor to eat only organic foods. The diet is wonderfully healthful; but I would like to expand the variet...

We should assume that we will still be engaged in war against Jihadist terrorists. Indeed, their attacks will increase over the next few years, as their attempts here in America have increased in the past year. Eventually, the terrorists will realize they can strike at the American rail system, just as they did in Spain and England a few years ago. They will do so. Immediately, extensive security procedures will be required for all the major terminals and stations where large numbers of trains arrive and depart and mass numbers of passengers and the public gather. In short order, the security checks will require as much time for railroads as they do for airlines. The notion of a 1 hour savings at downtown stations will evaporate just as soon as we have spent tens of billions of dollars to obtain it for the few passengers who try to take advantage of it. Sorry. Can't agree with you. Saving one hour downtown won't be a real benefit, after all.

California is doing manly iron pumping on behalf of the state high-speed rail project foolishly approved by voters in 2008. The state hopes to receive billions of federal dollars for the huge project that would run high-speed trains (150 to 200 mph) from San Diego in the South to Sacramento and ...

A sensible place to begin would be a food sensitivity test, which is different from a standard food allergy test. The best known food sensitivity test is the Al-Cat test, a proprietary test that involves drawing blood and testing blood cell response to antigens. I used the Al-Cat test. Go to a naturopathic doctor who can arrange for the test, interpret the results, and assist you in changing your diet.

I grew up loving home baked bread and cookies. My mother learned to bake in the second world war from the cook at the small New England inn where she and I, an infant, lived when my father, army rifleman, was serving in Europe. She was a wonderful cook, too. I was one of the last of a generati...

Okay. The coloring of invisible-to-us radiation frequencies from space with colors we can see "reveals" the invisible. But the radiation in space doesn't have the colors as objective properties. It's the pictures that are colored. Not to say they aren't beautiful scenes, as so revealed by fake colored photographs!

We are often dazzled by the beautiful color photographs, taken by the Hubble orbital telescope, of vast stellar structures in outer space. The problem is, the colors in the photos are fake. The Hubble takes digital images in black and white--a gray scale. Then NASA artists add colors to the diff...

Thank you for your long, thoughtful response. I surely did not mean to malign Martinsville and regret if I did so. I was responding to the linked article written about Martinsville unemployed men and the retraining programs they were taking. The linked article implied that the retraining was not useful for the men. I was developing that point, to say that government retraining programs aren't really useful, because they train for the jobs of the past, not the future. Community college education is a different issue. I well understand what community colleges can do. Your testimony is evidence of the benefit of community college education and vocational programs. Community colleges provide the best preparation of people for the jobs of the future--precisely because community colleges are in close contact with the industries of their communities. The colleges know what the industries and businesses need for workers and can provide some of the education those businesses need for their jobs. But the point still remains that the businesses themselves do most of the training for their jobs, but building on what the community colleges do. California is pretty dumb about many things, but not about the important role community colleges play in preparing our state's labor force for the future. As for Martinsville ... we have a second life in West Virginia, Greenbrier County, preparing for farming (see my blog "Eighty Seven Acres"); so we share with you a vested interest in the success and prosperity of the West Virginia-Southwestern corner of Virginia. I'm sure that Martinsville is a great place. It must be when it is so ably defended as you have done!

In his Real Clear Politics article, "Fighting the Mancession," Michael Gerson profiles unemployed men of Martinsville, Virginia. Textile and furniture manufacturing has fled overseas from this small city, leaving behind unemployed mostly male workers, who are fit for little else. Some are curren...

I think you are correct that an internal cause is involved in some cases. Improper diet (e.g.,too much sugar) can disrupt the bacteria-fungus balance by causing acidosis and killing bacteria, allowing fungus to flourish. But note that fungus are everywhere in and on the body, and in our environment. We can't eliminate fungus from being on and in our bodies. This issue is keeping fungus growth in check. This is my understanding, but you would be advised to check with a naturopathic doctor or physician about this analysis and the appropriate remedy or treatment regimen.

Sometimes, insight comes from the unlikeliest sources. For years I have been afflicted by chilblains (I think this is the correct term, but I am not certain) on my fingers. These little sores occur frequently in the winters, but sometimes in the summers. They develop quickly. In as little as 2 h...

Sometimes, insight comes from the unlikeliest sources. For years I have been afflicted by chilblains (I think this is the correct term, but I am not certain) on my fingers. These little sores occur frequently in the winters, but sometimes in the summers. They develop quickly. In as little as 2 h...

For characteristics of marijuana use and users, see this 2004 survey. http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k4/dailyMJ/dailyMJ.htm
On marijuana use and health, see
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080123104017.htm (lungs)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070521145539.htm (lungs, cardio)
http://www.ukcia.org/research/RespiratoryEffectsMarijuanaAndTobacco.pdf (lungs)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1490047/ (lung)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090202175105.htm (brain)
Marijuana use surveys show several characteristics of users that suggest marijuana use is a dual diagnosis issue; that is, that users of marijuana suffer from pre-existing, underlying, undiagnosed health problems of which they are unaware and which they are trying to self-medicate with marijuana. (This relationship is much clearer in older marijuana and other illegal drug users who show up in drug courts.)
Users are overwhelmingly young males. This fact suggests hypothetically that marijuana use in this demographic profiles similar to alcohol abuse. The profile would include emotional maturation issues and difficulty dealing with the social context of testosterone surge. Indirect support for this hypothesis is provided by the fact that marijuana use drops off as males get older, as the emotional issues resolve and testosterone plateaus, or as users move, alas, to more powerful intoxicants.
Any person using marijuana frequently should encouraged to seek medical evaluation and treatment for correlated underlying health issues.

The notion that legalizing marijuana would solve most of the drug problem in the US is nonsense. It would eliminate the problem of illegal sales and purchases and much consumption of marijuana as an illegal drug--that would be true by definition; but it would increase other problems. (1) Legaliz...

Regime change would not necessarily bring an end to the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Nor would a new, genuinely representative government, letting Iranians enjoy some freedoms. Further, there is no evidence that the Iranian revolution is in favor of a secular or non-Muslim state. The greatest likelihood is that any successor regime would exist within a huge upwelling of Iranian nationalism and populist Muslim belief. And that any new government, existing within that nationalism and Muslim doctrine, would insist on maintaining its nuke program. Certainly that would be the case until a small arsenal of bombs and their delivery missiles are build. Why would any government give up the program before it is successful and when their bargaining power is weakest? Further, bombing the nuke sites would intensify Iranian nationalism, making it likely that even a successor regime would try to repair the program. Nonetheless, this is the horror of existential state decisions, Israel is better off getting rid of the Iranian nukes now, even at the cost of a war; for Iran has made it clear that it intends to use the nukes to destroy Israel. Destroying Israel would probably help the current regime stay in power. And possession of nukes and destroying Israel would make Iran, whether led by the current Mullahs or by successors, arguably the leading power of the Middle East. And that would help keep the regime in power.

There are signs that Netanyahu is preparing the political and state ground for an attack early next year on Iran. He is talking with Livni about her joining his coalition government. She is the major politician on the outside; Netanyahu undoubtedly wants her inside for a national decision such as...